Elis Mendoza is a Ph.D. candidate in architecture history and theory. Her dissertation traces a history of architecture experimentation within the incipient humanitarian government of the 1970s that runs parallel to well-established architectural histories of development and technology.

Elis works in the intersection between built space, technology, and human rights with a special focus in post-conflict cities. She has presented her research at the Guatemalan Court for Vulnerable Victims in 2016, and is currently developing research on the criminal negligence of rapacious post-disaster building practices in Mexico City after the 1985 and 2017 earthquakes.

Elis has been a Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives Fellow (2018,) a Lassen fellow at Princeton University (2015), and a fellow at the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) 2012-2014 among others. She has taken part in projects by the Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative and Forensic Architecture.

Before coming to Princeton, Elis earned a Bachelor's degree in architecture at UNAM, Mexico and a M.Sc. in Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture at Columbia University, where she received the CCCP award for high academic attainment.